9 Things a Florida Library Card Gets You Free That Residents Rarely Use

Free things are hard to come by when every bill keeps going up.

Depending on the county, a Florida library card can open the door to a lot more than books for you.

Here’s what a card can get Floridians for free in a handful of counties, and how to use it.

1. A Library of Things

With your Brevard County library card, you can check out ukulele kits, blood pressure monitors and birdwatching kits for free from the Library of Things.

The birdwatching kits at Titusville Public Library come with field guides, binoculars and a recording journal.

Brevard’s seed library lets you take home flower, vegetable, fruit and herb seeds.

The page says you return some seeds at the end of the season so others in your community can grow them.

Some items go only to adult cardholders.

You can’t use the book drop for these items, so you return them to the branch where you borrowed them.

2. Attraction Passes

A Hillsborough County library card gets you a free Discovery Pass to the Tampa Bay History Center, the Tampa Museum of Art or the Florida Aquarium.

The library says you reserve most passes online for a date within a 30-day window.

You can borrow one pass for each attraction each year.

Most passes admit up to four people.

You borrow the Florida Aquarium’s pass in person at one of six branches, unlike the other attraction passes.

You have seven days to visit, and the pass admits up to six people.

Miami-Dade’s library system lends free museum passes too, including Vizcaya Museum & Gardens, the Pérez Art Museum Miami and Jungle Island.

Those passes can’t be reserved, so you pick one up in person on a first-come, first-served basis.

Each pass covers one visit for up to a family of four, valid for seven days after checkout.

The library’s pass page marks which attractions are unavailable, so you can check before you go.

3. Books by Mail

Your Hillsborough County library card can bring books, audiobooks and DVDs to your mailbox for free, according to the library’s Borrow by Mail page.

You have to be a Hillsborough County resident who is 17 or older.

Most items have a four-week checkout, and DVDs get two weeks.

The return trip has one catch, since mailing items back means postage charges apply.

You can use the book drops at your nearest library location instead.

You can request up to 35 items at a time.

4. Hotspots and Chromebooks

With a Miami-Dade library card, you can borrow a Wi-Fi hotspot or a Chromebook for 30 days, free.

According to the library, a hotspot connects up to 15 devices to a mobile wireless network.

A Chromebook comes with built-in internet access, Wi-Fi capability and preloaded apps.

Miami-Dade allows one hold per library account.

When a device is ready, you have seven business days to pick it up.

If you don’t have a card yet, you can get an eCard online, but you have to verify your address before you check out a device.

5. Kanopy Streaming

Kanopy is a free streaming service for Palm Beach County cardholders, according to the library’s Kanopy page.

You can stream thousands of movies and TV shows with your library card.

The homepage lists 15 tickets a month for Kanopy, but its rotating banners change, so check the current number before you count on it.

6. Freegal Streaming and Downloads

Your Miami-Dade library card gets you Freegal Music, which the Freegal page calls a free music service.

Miami-Dade’s library says you can stream unlimited tracks and music videos, plus download and keep five songs each month.

The service has more than 15 million songs across more than 200 genres.

7. Live Show Passes

Your Orange County Library System card gets you free passes to live performances through a program called Local Wanderer, the library says.

The Orlando Ballet and the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra are among the partners.

Show passes go live at 10:00 a.m., 30 days before the performance.

Passes to attractions such as the Central Florida Zoo and Harry P. Leu Gardens go live at 10:00 a.m. on the first business day of each month.

You can reserve up to two passes from each partner each calendar year, with no more than two active passes a month.

Check wander.ocls.org for current availability before you plan around a pass.

8. LinkedIn Learning Courses

Jacksonville Public Library says a library card and PIN get you unlimited free access to LinkedIn Learning.

That includes more than 16,000 on-demand courses in seven languages.

The courses cover multimedia, design, web development and social media, plus business skills such as management, leadership and marketing.

New courses are added each week.

If you use the LinkedIn Learning mobile app, the library ID for signing in is listed too.

9. Newspapers and Product Ratings

Miami-Dade’s Library Card Sign-up Month page lists online newspapers among the things that are free with your library card.

You get online access to The Wall Street Journal, free with your library card.

Outside a library branch, you read The New York Times with a 24-hour access code.

There are no limits on how many codes you can use.

The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald are available too, with current and archived issues of each.

Consumer Reports is on the list too, with reviews, ratings and buying guides for everything from appliances and electronics to cars.

Limits and Fees

Your Hillsborough County library card comes with limits too, starting with 180 minutes a day on the library's internet computers, according to its technology page.

Printing is free for 10 black-and-white pages or 5 color pages a day.

After that, pages cost 5 cents in black and white and 10 cents in color.

Clearwater Public Library's Library of Things page says it lends tools, telescopes and Wi-Fi hotspots.

Under its policy, an item counts as lost 10 days after its due date.

You then pay the item's full price plus a $5 processing fee.